Skyrim

Plain and simple.

Skyrim.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Awesome Sauce

I picked this beauty up over the Steam Summer Sale.

This epic game that Bethesda made.  The amazing American (Western) RPG.  The Elder Scroll series which is the answer to Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, and all of the other incredible JRPG's.

My thoughts on the matter are it might not be a complete JRPG slayer.  Its a good game.  There are some issues though with the draw of it.

The graphics are amazing.  When you have a PC that can handle this game on full then it will definitely rock your socks off.  I wish I had real HD monitors that would allow me to experience this in its full glory.  Plus there are plenty of mods that help to increase how good the game is displayed.  A lot of mods.  And this type of mod is one that I find myself getting a lot.  I found a website through Kotaku about a player who has over 100 mods to create an amazing experience.  You can find it here.

Because of all the different mods there always leaves open more and more things to add on.  Like left hand rings, an amazing storage area, etc.  Mods are good and bad at the same time.  If you use them in ways that don't break the mechanics of the game and give you an unfair advantage I don't see an issue with them.  Mods for better graphics.  Mods that allow your followers to understand your commands better.  Mods that help to organize your storage in your home (not increase your on person storage) are all things I don't see a problem with.  I do think mods that cheat your stats and give an unfair advantage are cheating.  Yet who am I to say its cheating.  Skyrim is so massive and open that one could say that there is no "correct" way to play.

That leads me to the next point.  Being open.  Really open.  OOOPPPEEENNN.

You can do whatever you want in almost any order.  You can spends days just doing sidequests and never finish the main story.  To me its almost just too big.  I get too distracted with things and then its hard to reign myself in and continue on.  I don't want to miss a thing (queue song in your head....now). I want to experience everything there is in this digital realm to stimulate my synapses with pleasure of the game.  But I fear that I will miss things.  Its that fear that makes me hesitant.  Hesitant to turn the machine on and return.  Its something that I feel whenever I play Fallout 3 as well.  Both are Bethesda games.  Both make me really like them, but then also get sick with the amount of things to do.  Its hard to fathom what I need to do to be the best or to really enjoy everything.

Damn you Bethesda.  Maybe that is what they think WRPG should be.  Completely open.  Its something that I think maybe needs to be toned down a little.  Yes you should have a role where you can adjust it to however you want, but I think there should be some limitations.  Those limitations help someone like me keep focused on the main prospect of the game.  I need those.

Now some people might say I should just not play these games.  They may be right with those statements.  But I like the games.  I like what they have going on within them.  I need to learn how to deal with the expansiveness of the games and eventually I will greatly love them.

UPDATES A PLENTY!!!

Like the title of the entry says:

UPDATES A PLENTY!!!!

Over the holidays I went up to North Carolina to spend time with my mother.  My wife, Jacob (the pup), and I had a blast up there.  Its so nice to breathe in the fresh North Carolina air.  Things were simple up there with on big stressors.  Nice to relax.  Nice to collect our thoughts and prepare for the final drive for the rest of the year.

Nice to catch up on some games.

I have yet to update my backlog page, but I will do that soon.  I didn't want to screw up my chances of getting some badges on the site when I added some new games.  I beat Mega Man X, and with the progress I made over the holiday I can get a badge on the site.  Yet if I put my new games up on there then I reset my progress made to the badge.  So I am going to wait to figure out what needs to be on there before I add things.

Hold on a second.  Did you say progress???
Yes I did.

Over the weekend I completed one game and beat another.

YAY excitement!!!

I completed Legend of Dragoon!!
It took 12 years and ~70 hours, but I have done it.  I am still formulating my post for this in my head since I have so many mixed feelings from what I felt as a child playing this, and my internal processes from completing it now.  Once I have those completely sorted out things will be put to digital pen and paper and all will be available for your eyes.



The game I beat was..

BAM!!

I finally beat FFXIII-2.  I finished in just over 48 hours, and with 123/160 fragments.  I owned the final fights.  Got all 5 stars for each battle.  Now that I have finished the game, I am going to go back and complete all the quests and achieve all the fragments so I can list this as a completion.  I would love to have this as a completion, plus I feel that I can get the platinum trophy that comes with this easily.  

I too am still forming the entry for this one.  I will be doing one on beating it and then will add one once I complete it.  I think I deserve to do this for sure.

You might be asking why I keep saying beat and complete.  With the Backloggery when you finish a game you must list if it is a beat or a complete.  Beating a game is just completing the main story line to the game.  Completing the game is finishing the main story line, then collecting all the side items, completing side quests, obtaining all the trophies, etc.  Completes are harder to get but that is how it should be.  I like to have as many of them as I can get.  

I am going to work on updating The Completed List with Beat games and Completed Games.  I will toss this into the updates that I have planned for the site.

As for now, thank you for coming by and reading.  I will have more for you soon.

Frequent Posting Update

I just wanted to post that I am working on a couple of projects right now.

First: I am currently working on a couple of posts to go up while over the break.  Just in case anyone wants to read over the holidays.  I guess here you go.

Second: I am going to post more things on this blog.  Random posts, funny things I see, stories, reviews, etc. I think if I just keep doing posts about my progress on games (which will continue to occur, so don't worry) then the blog won't be used as efficiently as I think it can.  Its no secret I have ads (look above and to the right).  I do my best to limit those ads because I hate blogs that just have them all willy-nilly about the place.  On the other side of things though I would like to make a little money off of this site so I can feed my addiction.

Don't worry though.  I will never do a review of a game or product just to plug it and get cash.  I give my poorly typed opinion on things and that is just how it is.  I will continue to limit the ads as best as possible, but as of now I have no plans to take them away completely.

Third: Please follow my twitter.  I use my main twitter handle for now, Badfish54.  I have that set up to post when I have to entries in, but I will start passing on random info from there too.

Fourth: On Facebook as well.  Getting Through the Games.  That is the page.  Come on by and like.  It is still a work in progress.

Fifth: You may notice that I am going to start mentioning other blogs.  I think all bloggers need to look out for each other.  So as I read around if I think its a read then I will post it up on here.

Sixth: I have decided to work on a book.  I have never written one before but I thought it would be cool to try and put some of my random ideas to page.  I have a great one (I won't tell what it is about) and I will update people on how that goes.  Currently I have 3 pages written.  YAY!!!


Thats all for now.  

Getting Through...

I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and nervous tics.  Or a least I was told I had that when I was young.  It may be something else, but I have grown up and taken meds for that and other things.

I wanted to talk about the issues I had growing up that maybe the game world helped and/or hurt.  Some of these problems other gamers probably have.  Hell, I know a lot do.  A lot of people have these conditions and I just wanted to talk about myself and how I have dealt with things.  So a little backstory.

When I was around the age of 5 I was diagnosed with ADHD (or maybe ADD, how knows.  I know later on I was told I had ADHD).  They put me on the standard then, Ritalin, and I took that twice a day everyday.  I was lucky to have the summers off of my medication where I could be a wild and crazy kid (great show).  That would end though when school got close though.  Back on the medicine I would go.  That is how things went until middle school.

Around 6th/7th grade I started to have OCD tendencies they said, as well as nervous tics.  I had problems with stuttering and making a clicking noise in my throat.  They also thought I was depressed and they redid the medications.  I went from Ritalin to Adderal (a version of which was sustained release), Prozac, then Luvox, then Paxil, then Wellabutrin.  I also started to take Clonidine around 8th grade and continued that until 10th.  That was a fun drug.  Nothing like almost passing out through the day cause the stuff is an anti-anxiety drug with a wonderful side effect of knocking you on your ass.

The worst OCD tendency that I had was with my writing and typing.  I would be writing things and I would make . really big and cause they were perfect when I originally put them down.  0 and 8 were the same things.  I would keep making them bigger and bigger.  This started around 3rd grade when I started at a new school (damn you Country Day).  This then turned into me writing something and I would cross it out or completely scratch it out.  I went through a lot of pencil erasers doing this.  I would have written the world/letter/number perfectly, but in my mind it was horrible.  I had to fix it.  And when I did that I would feel like I made another mistake so I would eradicate that.  And so on and so on.  Numbers were the worst. I had to start doing all my math problems in Roman Numerals just to get through math classes.  I constantly felt like there was no end in sight.  With typing I would write a sentence and then erase the whole thing cause I felt that I didn't hit the keys just write.  After you finish a sentence you normally put 2 spaces after the period.  I would hit "space space, back back, space space, back back, space space, back back" cause I needed that pattern.

My tics were the worst part though.  I had one where I would imagine a wheel spinning in my head and I couldn't make my mind make it stop spinning.  So I would suddenly concentrate completely on this wheel going around and around nonstop.  It would sometimes take me almost 5 minutes to calm things down.   I had a horrible tic where I would shake my head violently over and over again throughout the day.  I started messing up the muscles in my neck and giving myself daily migraines.   I had a horrible tic where I would shake my head violently over and over again throughout the day.  I started messing up the muscles in my neck and giving myself daily migraines.  Of course all the anxiety caused by all of this caused it to be even worse.

So some how I made it through many years of all of that, and I made it to high school.  In high school things got changed up and I went from Adderall to Concerta 54, the high dose.  Then in 11th grade I was switched to a non-stimulant drug called Strattera.  They made the switch cause my doctor finally realized that my tics were still there.  Those started to calm down, however my throat clicking and stuttering still continued.  Something no one really knew was that when taking Strattera it amplifies your emotions and feelings, and being a hormonal teenager things were great.  NOT.

I became really depressed and had many a dark thought.  My grades started to slip and it only just plummeted.  I think the only reason I made it through was cause I got to the summer and I went off all my meds.  I was free and able to figure out what would make me feel better.  What could I do to take control of my mind??  What the hell is the answer???

Well, I spent a lot of time watching M*A*S*H.  Besides doing that (its a great show may I add) and watching a lot of other things and building up an enormous collection of movies and TV shows, I played games.  A lot of games.

I have been playing games all of my life.  One of the constants that I have had.  I am a big lover of RPG games (if you haven't figured yet).  During this summer period I played a lot of RPG games and they helped me to get aligned right.  Once my senior year started I had a munch better mindset and I went back on the Strattera.  I killed it that year.  My grades shot through the roof and I made honor roll for the first time ever (hell I made it multiple times).  I had my first real relationship and got into college.  I started to play FFXI as well and that helped me to reward myself with playing.

Then I graduated and I made the decision to come off all my medication entirely.  I felt that I had trained myself enough to make it without the meds.  And so I did.  That was in June of 2004, and since then I have been med free since then.  I went through college without anything but my only ability to figure out how to control my mind.  I then went through grad school and now have a job and an amazing wife and been med free.  Its a great feeling and I think besides the wonderful people in my life that have always supported me, I think that games helped me to get through things.

The pattern that many games have where you have to do the same thing over and over again helped my OCD tendencies big time.  I quickly set into things and could keep going with them cause of this pattern.

Another aspect of the games that helped me was the ability to escape.  FFXI helped with this greatly since I was completely immersed in another world cause of the MMO platform.  With games however I could escape.  When I got hyper anxious or nervous about things, or I got over stressed, I knew that I could turn on a machine and escape for awhile.  This type of therapy helped my brain get into a new place and a pattern, while part of my brain sorted out the details of the madness of my life.  I never felt bad when I played games (except when I would die and not saved for a while.  DAMN YOU when that happened).  I only felt pleasantness.  Some people might say this is not the way to approach things.  That you need to take things head on.  They would be right with that method.  I would do that eventually.  I just needed to do something to take the edge and craziness of the world out of my mind and sort out how I wanted to do things before I did them.  Then once I was done I would take care of my problems.

I kicked ass in college and grad school using this method.  I don't think that I even thought of it as one then.  Looking back now I do consider it my own little therapy method.  It feels good to be able to step out of this chaotic swirling vortex of anger and stimulus that we call life so one can look back on things and sort it out.  With work and all nowadays its hard for me to find the time to just turn on a new world and step out for second.  I do my best to do that and this blog helps me to do so.  My tics have been minimal (knock on wood) with controllable ups and downs, and my OCD is pretty contained.  My ADHD is still around, but I have lost the H awhile ago.  I know how to let my mind wonder and bring it back in.

I was able to grow up and assert more control over my emotions and mind.  Control my anger and sadness. Do all of this cause I had games to help me.  I can be in control without them now.  Its not an addiction at all.  I can play games just to play them and enjoy them when I want to.  But when times get tough I can turn on the machine and step out for a few.  Take a mental 3 hours or so when I can find the time.  Its something that I know is possible and will enjoy for the rest of my life.  Games have helped me so much and I intend to help them back.  And by doing that I plan to play them and beat them.

Plus, this is much better than relieving my frustrations with alcohol, smoking, drugs, or violent sex.

DON'T DO DRUGS

Dragoon Power Bitches

If any of this seems redundant its because I am not checking my earlier posts to see if I have talked at all about things.

Why you ask?

I am lazy.  The idea of combing through many posts of information makes me want to hurl right now.

Look.  I had a long day yesterday.  Had to spend about 10 hours on a bus travelling for work.  It surely was a blast.

Time Travel Forward.

Found at http://www.lightspeed.cx/

I started this post on 10/24.  I just started back on this on 11/1.  Why?

Well.  I blame it on a bitch name Sandy.

AP/Weather Underground - NOAA satellite image 10/28/2012

Hurricane Sandy to be specific.

On October 26th, my birthday, my wife and I flew to DC so that she could run in the Marine Corps Marathon with her father.  The race was on the 28th.  We knew before heading up that Sandy was coming, however we knew the marathon had to go on.  We were to leave to come back to Savannah on the evening of the 29th.  All planned out and good to go.

On the 27th we started to get word that maybe we should move our plane back to after the race, but we wanted to spend time in DC with friends and family, and we thought we would be good on Monday evening.  Mostly cause our brains were telling us that DC wasn't the direct target.  I mean I have been through a couple of these things before and I know how to call a hurricane target.

So Sunday, October 28th arrives.  My wife and her father wake up and they head out on the metro.  They start the marathon at 7:55 and proceed to kick some ass.  I met up with many friends, including we$$, and we went all over DC and VA on the metro and by foot to catch them at different points.  It was so exciting to cheer them on.  The adventure of tracking them and catching the right metro was great.  I still remember the face my wife gave when she saw us around mile marker 22-23.  She just had this surprised look like she didn't know we were going to be there.  Then she smiled and we cheered her on.  We met her at the final hill at the finish line and I even jogged with her some (I am sooo out of shape) to help her get through that last part.  She finished around 5:50 and is officially a marathoner.

YAY!!!!!!!

I really am proud of my wife for completing her first marathon.  She is a marathoner.  Thats so damn cool.  I think I am more proud of her than I would be of anything else.  Even completing this damn list.  GO MARATHON WIFE!!!

If any of you would like to follow her blog you can check her out here.  Its a great blog for people who like running, or want to know more about it.


Back to the matter at hand.  Se we get back to the hotel and discover that OUR PLANES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED!!!.

NOOOOO.  That cannot be.  We had plans.  We were going back.  Alas, all the airports from DC and north of were shutdown starting Sunday night.  We were stuck in DC until Thursday at the soonest.  November 1st.

So after I got things squared away with work, and we found out we could stay in the hotel (2 bed/2 bath/ with a kitchen so it rocked), we settled down and decided to make the best of things.  It was around this point that I realized that I was glad I brought Legend of Dragoon with me.

I started at this point during the downtime to really point some work into LoD.  We would get trophies and spend time with we$$ in DC, but during the downtime when the wife and her father were resting or napping cause they were exhausted from the marathon, I would game like mad.  I think I got a good solid 9 hours extra in on things.  Which helped me to get pretty far.  I have really kicked ass with the additions system and Dragoon levels.

Wait a second.  What are the additions?  Well, its something nifty that Square put in.  Instead of most RPG fighting where you just click attack and your character does that, you are presented with a closing square that you have to hit the X button just in time to score an additional hit (ahhhhh see where addition comes from??).  Additions don't just give you more SP that allows you to transform into a Dragoon, nor just causing a hell of a lot more damage, but it also breaks up the monotony of things.  Yeah you can get through fights by just hitting the same button over and over and over again and not pay attention, but I have found that this can get old.  Having to time things so you can get extra damage, plus have to level up your individual additions adds an extra uniqueness to things that keeps me interested.  Your character don't gain that much when they level up like other games.  Instead the real determining factor is how proficient one is with using additions.  That is where you get your true strength from in the game.  Even with Dragoon transformations, because you are so limited with what you can do when transformed you have more power with the use of additions.

So I find myself now on Disc 4, with almost all of the side stuff done.  Like most RPG games grinding is what I am doing now.  It can be draining on one though.  Doing the same things over and over and over again is so BLAH at times.  The additions system helps some, but I think I am going to finish the last side quest soon then head on to complete the game.

I loved this kid when I was a kid.  It was amazing and I blew it up in my mind that this was the end all Square game that needed more advertisement than it actually got.  I still think that Square could build a lot with the Dragoon series, but there are a lot of flaws in this game that I wouldn't have picked up as a wee lad.  The translation for the game is kind of hard for me to get through.  I don't know if it is that or something else but the storyline just seems to happen without any transitions.  Things just happen and you have to go with it, no explanations at all.  It can be a little disconcerting cause you have to just go with it.  Blah.  It can ruin the flow of things.  I am doing one thing with the storyline and then suddenly I have to do something else just cause I was told to abruptly.  I NEED BACK STORY PEOPLE!!!

I will keep people updated on things.  I am hopping to have this game completed soon so I can get done with Battlestar: Galactica on Netflix.  Then I can watch the new series online and read the books.

AHHH!!

I have way too much on my to do lists

Mega Man (Rock Man) Rocks in X

I was working on my Legend of Dragoon post before my wife and I left to go to DC last week so she could run the Marine Corps Marathon (it was her first marathon ever).  She totally rocked it as well.  I am so proud of her.

I will finish up my Legend of Dragoon post, plus talk about our experience up in DC and then the subsequent being stuck in DC soon.  I wanted to talk about another game I just completed.

MegaMan X with no upgrades

MegaMan X with upgrades.  Pretty badass, minus his thunder shins

I have loved MegaMan since I was a kid. The original games on the NES were a bitch to beat.  I attribute this to the fact that back in the day everything was harder, including kids growing up.  We didn't have as many limitations by people or people looking out for us.  There was a constant concern of natural selection taking over and we would end up dead in the street.  This mentality also was taken into video games.  Many people have played the original MegaMan games and never completed them, myself included.  It was so damn hard to get through the levels to the bosses for each stage and not just having to beat them.  Some of them had an easy mode that you could try to use to help get through the game, but still it was hard as hell.

There are many trademarks to MegaMan.  Dr. Light, Dr. Wright, the ability to take your enemies ability and use it.  Robots Robots Robots.  It is fun.

Now MegaMan X is a reinvention of the MegaMan series for when Capcom decided to develop the MegaMan for the SNES.  It has 16-bit graphics, new characters, new story, and takes place ~100 years in the future.  MegaMan X was made by Dr. Light in the past but locked away due to certain factors.  If you are really concerned about the back story to him, you can find it here.  

X has an added bonus to him from MegaMan in that you find capsules with Dr. Light's hologram in them giving X newer armor and body.  I don't know why but when I was a wee lad I loved this concept of upgrading beyond just getting new abilities.  It was so cool looking for upgrades, heart tanks, extra energy tanks.  I loved it.  I needed it.

Maybe this is what fueled my wonderful OCD.  Who knows.

So now that I have laid down the foundation for MegaMan X and my attraction, the question is why did I just play it?

Well, the reason is I needed something to break up the monotony that has been going on in terms of the games that I have been playing.  I love RPG's.  I love them oh so much.  But when you play a whole lot of them at one time then it feels as if your life is dragging on and on.  Just grinding away the days.  Because you have to spend a lot more time on a RPG (on Legend of Dragoon I am currently around 56 hours) you need a break.  And MegaMan X provided that for me.

I was able to beat Mega Man X in maybe 7 hours tops.  I did a full Complete as well and have updated Backloggery to reflect that.  All upgrades and tanks and weapons GOT bitches.

I guess this is when I talk about Mega Man X and its coolness factors and all.  It was cool.  It did well in terms of setting off the X series of games.  I will be playing the other X games, mostly cause I have them on my list, but because I like the series.  Because I am playing my SNES for the most part on a PC emulator I get the added benefit of having save states.  I love save states.  I can instantly save anywhere and return to it whenever.  Its great.  But I think this can also damper the experience sometimes.

Instead of having to deal with dying and then going back through the stage, or replaying the boss again and again, with whatever energy I have left over in terms of my weapon energy usage, I got to cheat the system and restart exactly where I was.  I used this to help me with the final boss fight for the game cause I could save state each time I landed a hit on him so I would not lose my process.  In normal play you would have to keep track of passwords that you get when you complete stages or whatever, but the save state process knocks all of that out.  It cuts out the fine property of the game where you have to be really careful and plan things out.  You can't explore too much or you have to start alll over again.  That is something that is nice for someone who wants to experience the game as opposed to someone who wishes only to complete things.

I try and not to play through just to play through.  I like to experience the story and all.  However the other part of me is like "Hey dude.  There is this ability with the emulator that you can use.  Might as well."  So I did my best to balance the two and didn't abuse the system.

Bottom line time.  Should people play this.  I think everyone should play this that has every played a Mega Man game and enjoyed it.  It is different but the same.  I guess you could say it is a same difference.  Its a great game.  I am glad it is not something where it is a completely different path from the original series.  Its a great game and keeps to a similar route, maybe just off to the side.  Like a highway access road.  Yeah.  Like that.

Play it!